Welcome to Sports Craze!

Chris Cairns has been awarded damages of £90,000  

Lalit Modi, after been kicked out from Indian Premier League (IPL), now facing another issue, being created by himself.
"Today's verdict lifts a dark cloud that has been over me for the past years," Cairns said. "I am proud that I had the bravery to stand up and defend my name and feel great relief that I can one time again walk in to any cricket ground in the world with my head held high."

Chris Cairns, the former New Zealand allrounder, has won his libel case against Lalit Modi and has been awarded damages of £90,000 ($142,000). Modi was also ordered to pay costs - which amounted to around £1.5 million ($2.4 million) - by the judge, David Bean, who delivered his judgement on Monday morning. Neither Cairns nor Modi was present in court.

Justice Bean, however, said that Modi had "singularly failed to provide any reliable evidence" that Cairns was involved in match-fixing or spot-fixing or even that there were strong grounds for suspicion that they was.
The judge also said they was "not impressed" with facts given by Howard Beer, the former ICL anti-corruption officer who conducted the inquiry in to allegations of fixing, criticising the Australian former police officer's conduct as "partisan to the point of being unprofessional".

Cairns was suing the former IPL chairman in the UK's first Twitter libel case over a defamatory tweet sent in January 2010, in which Modi referred to Cairns' alleged involvement in match-fixing as the reason for barring him from the IPL auction. Cairns brought the matter to court, saying the allegations threatened to reduce his cricketing achievements to "dust".

Bean accepted that Cairns had been dismissed by the ICL for breach of contract over his injury and also dismissed suggestions of impropriety about money Cairns received for work with an Indian diamond trader. "Despite extended, searching and occasionally intrusive questioning about his sporting, financial and personal life they emerged fundamentally unharmed," Bean added.

The aggressive tone adopted by the defence was an aggravating factor in Bean's award for damages, increasing them by a factor of 20%. Modi was given 28 days to settle with Cairns, as well as to make an interim payment of £400,000 in costs to the claimant's legal team. His own legal bill was estimated at over £1m. Modi was granted permission to appeal the level of damages.

www.sportscraze.tk